How to Apply a Fiberglass Orthopedic Cast

Especially when it involves your health or an injury. Feeling like you need to have everything figured out by the time you get to your doctor’s appointment can be extremely stressful.

Orthotape is trying to make this process easier on patients and give them the opportunity to personalize their cast (since a cast is typically worn for about 4-6 weeks). Most doctor offices are only able to offer a few options for cast colors due to the storage it would take up to keep multiple colors of stockinette and fiberglass casting tape.

We offer our cast kits at bottom line prices. Typically, this can save patients more money by buying a kit and having the cast technician use that. Due to mark ups and insurance it can be costlier to use the casting materials at the doctor’s office than if you supply the casting materials yourself.

Our cast kits come with everything you will need for the cast application process, including gloves! And the application process for fiberglass casts is fairly easy. Broken bones are very painful and if you were wondering how a cast is applied to patients with broken bones, the steps are listed below!

The first step is to pull the tubular stockinette over the broken limb. The stockinette is used to help to wick sweat from the body. We offer 8 different colors of stockinette, to help your personalize cast.

The second step is to wrap the cast padding around the arm, over the stockinette. The cast padding is there to provide a cushion between the limb and the fiberglass cast tape.

The third and final step is applying the fiberglass casting tape, to finish the cast. Make sure you wear gloves when handling the fiberglass tape as it is hard to remove from the skin. There are 2 different methods that can be used to apply the tape, one is the dry method and the second is the traditional way where you wet the tape before applying it.

Below are links to both methods for applying the fiberglass tape and the cast application process. We hope this helps inform and help you through this process, so that dealing with broken bones isn’t quite as stressful.